So my brother in law is headed to Key West with his friends for a bachelor party and they run into Westhoff coming from Jets training camp. One of his buddies is a big Jets fan and strikes up a conversation with him. Westhoff said the team was on a good path but that Tannenbaum screwed things up by bringing in idiots and let key guys walk, that he undid everything they were trying to do. Also said Jets looked really good in ota's. I thought the Tannenbaum insight was pretty interesting. I'm surprised he was so candid.
I've met him before. He's incredibly candid. Does not give a fuck. He's the last of a dying breed, a real old timer who speaks his mind and doesn't care what people think or whether he's talking out of school about his team or his players. He can afford to do that because he speaks the truth. _
Yeah he comes across that way, the man is a throwback to the days. We can only hope he (Tanny) destroys the Dullphins next.
Well Westhoff echoed what many of of us felt, it started with letting Edwards walk in favor of Holmes. I still to this day say that was the move that destroyed what we were building. Edwards while and idiot was our idiot and he and Mark had chemistry, it was like Chad/Coles type chemistry and they had trust. Then letting Jones go was another bad move. Trading Leon Washington.... while I understand he wanted a lot of money there may have been a better way to handle this. The issue wasn't so much letting Mark's weapons go, it was what we replaced them with.
Jerrico Cotchery for Derrick Mason. All-time bad replacement sequence after which the Jets stopped playing like Jets because Cotchery was the guy who most embodied the theme with his tough gritty play and play-making.
He's talking about letting Edwards, Cotchery, Brad Smith (who he loved) and Woody go and replacing them with Holmes (kept instead of Edwards), Burress, Derrick Mason, Stephen Hill and Wayne Hunter. He's probably pissed about keeping Joe McKnight instead of that little guy that went to New England, too.
He did NOT like McKnight. When I said he was candid, that's exactly what I was talking about. I met him at a Met game the year we drafted Joe, we had field passes for batting practice and Rex and Pettine and Rex's wife were there--they were all hobnobbing with the Wilpons so I look over and Westoff is leaning against the fence minding his own business so I gently approached him, shook his hand, revealed myself as a huge Jet fan and figured I'd ask a few innocent softball questions. So I said "how's that McKnight kid doing?" expecting a canned answer like 'oh, he's got talent' or 'he's fast' or 'we like his potential' or some such fluff. Nope--he lets out a blunt "He's a twerp. He's got a lot to learn, thinks he knows everything--has a lot to work on". I was surprised and dumbfounded that he would be so critically honest, I just just kind of backed away and mumbled "nice to meet you" under my breath. Seriously does not give a fuck. He's like a cranky old honey badger. _
Remember that one handed catch he made after pulling his groin on the play versus Cleveland....I loved Jerrico
Cotchery asked for his release when he was replaced by two cons - Holmes and Burress. That seemed to spell disaster and he knew what was to happen to these new york Jets
Letting Cotchery, Woody, Tony Richardson, Brad Smith and yes blocking TE Ben Hartsock go without suitable replacements was the end of that run we had.
Of course Westhoff has even more ties to Miami than he does the Jets. He was there for many years under Shula. These are all great stories on Westhoff. He comes off this way on SNY: he shoots his mouth off a lot. One of the reasons the SNY post game show is can't miss TV. I thought he was just doing it to make a name for himself in broadcasting like other guys have done by saying controversial things but like some of you have stated he's like this in real life. I'm surprised about his Tanny comments but I guess he just doesn't like the guy. Not sure about his feelings about Idzik but last year on SNY you could guess most of the guys thought he was an idiot. They didn't say it because the guy was GM.
They let him go to bring in an older player who was an ex-Raven. I think it's not unreasonable to rank that move at #2 in the disintegration of the 2008-2010 team. Damien Woody being retired for Wayne Hunter was clearly #1. The Steelers picked him up despite their franchise philosophy of a year too early instead of a year too late. That's because there are only a few guys walking the earth who will keep playing on a play like that let alone make the catch his team had to have. I can't even imagine what fully extending like that with a pulled groun felt like but some guys will just do what has to be done or die trying.
Chad Cascadden basically said it. It may have been after he was fired...lol Westhof said on SNY one time that he wanted to be a HC, but was never interviewed. He seemed bitter about that. I believe he wanted to apply for the job after Mangini got fired but was declined. You could see he was not happy about it. He really knocked the Stephen Hill pick one time. He said that he was totally against it and was furious with it. He implied it was Tanny over ruling every one and said that there was a heated debate in the war room before he was picked. He said on the show, 'he had to go out and take a walk in the woods to cool off he was so pissed', lol